


So a Crow, an Enchanter, and a Ben-Hassrath Agent Walk into a Bar...

by iodhadh



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Background Dalish/Original Female Character, Espionage, M/M, Pre-Dragon Age: Origins, Rimming, Zevran Arainai's Amazing Self-Preservation Instincts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 02:57:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12289782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh/pseuds/iodhadh
Summary: The Iron Bull has had a lot of new experiences in the months he's been with Fisher's Bleeders. Foiling an assassination attempt isn't one of them—but being propositioned by an assassin when he gets between him and his target? That one may be unique to Antiva.





	So a Crow, an Enchanter, and a Ben-Hassrath Agent Walk into a Bar...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragonflies_and_Katydids](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/gifts).



> Many thanks to Katie for the brainstorm and beta, Sunny for the word wars, and Carly Rae Jepsen for the writing soundtrack. Please join me in imagining Zevran dancing and singing along to I Really Like You.
> 
> Despite the opening I promise this really is a Zevran/Bull fic. No, really. Keep reading. I promise!
> 
> This is entirely silly and I apologize for nothing, especially not the title. Hope you enjoy!

The tavern is crowded, raucous, and doing a brisk trade in food and wine. Mostly wine, if Bull’s being honest.

It’s much like most of the taverns in this part of Antiva City in that way, and the presence of half the company of Fisher’s Bleeders isn’t really helping on that front. They’ve been holed up here long enough for the staff to start asking pointed questions about how much longer their money’s going to last—but Fisher’s finally found them a new job, and he’s dragging them out in the morning. The Bleeders are making good use of their last free night.

Bull steps around a game of dice that’s gotten a bit too rowdy, easily lifting a full tray of tankards out of the way—the serving girls have stopped delivering to their table, with the number of drinks they’ve been putting away, and someone’s got to bring in a fresh round. Bull is happy to do it: it takes a lot to get him unsteady on his feet, and it’s not like it’s too heavy for him. Besides, anything that gets him on the company’s good side helps.

He’s been with the Bleeders a few months now. He’s finally starting to get used to not being Hissrad—to not having the Qun watching over his shoulder every step of the way. The workings of a mercenary band are both achingly familiar and unlike anything he’s ever known; in his memory, Seheron is both disturbingly close and very far away. But the friends he’s made since coming south are as un-Qunari as it’s possible to be. It’s startling, sometimes, but at the same time he finds himself unexpectedly fond of them, has trouble thinking of them as just _bas_.

They’re sitting nearby as he sets the tray down at the Bleeders’ main table. Grim is a couple tables away, in the middle of what looks like a silent and very intense card game with Sunshine, Big Jan, and a handful of locals; Rocky is leading the drinking song contingent, which breaks off from singing to swarm the tray the second Bull lets it go. Dalish is just around the other side of the table, fully absorbed in lively conversation with one of the other patrons, an enchanter from the Treviso Circle who arrived in Antiva City on Circle business this afternoon. Bull manages to scoop up a drink for himself and both of them before Rocky’s crew grabs them all, and he edges around the table to join them. Giulia is charming, for all that she’s a mage, and he likes Dalish. They’ll be good company.

“Brought you drinks,” he says, settling on the bench.

Dalish breaks off her conversation as he sits down, turning towards him with a bright smile. “I knew you were my favourite for a reason,” she says. She reaches out, making demanding motions with her hand, and Bull hands the tankards over with good humour. Dalish takes a deep drink, making a pleased noise, and sets her tankard down on the table.

“Have you met Giulia? Bull, Enchanter Giulia. Giulia, the Iron Bull.”

“We spoke briefly in the hall upstairs,” the enchanter says, smiling warmly. “I must admit, I had never seen a qunari so large before.”

“I get that a lot,” Bull says, grinning easily. Even on Par Vollen, his bulk had been notable, and on Seheron—well. There’s a reason people his size don’t often last long as spies. But people have been noticing him even more since he came south: some of them fearfully, but a lot of them—more than he’d expected—with fascination. In Antiva it’s trended more to fascination.

He’d have thought Giulia’s interest was more of the same, but there was nothing sexual in the way she had stared up at him in the tavern’s cramped upstairs hallway. Not so for the way her hand is resting possessively on Dalish’s leg right now.

“Just wait until you see him coming at you with an axe,” Dalish says.

Giulia laughs, but there’s a bit of an edge to it. “I should hope it won’t ever come to that,” she says. She regards him speculatively for a moment. “Though, I must admit, I’ve heard some horrible things about what Qunari do to their mages. Is it true you chain them like beasts?”

It’s not the first time someone’s asked Bull this, and he knows it won’t be the last; southerners are fascinated by magic and the grimmer realities of the Qun both. He’s getting used to explaining—or glossing over it—even though it’s not meant to be his role. “The Arvaarads keep the Saarebas contained, yeah. It’s necessary. Magic is too unpredictable. It has to be controlled.”

Giulia shudders delicately, but her gaze is as fascinated as it is horrified. “That’s monstrous. They would do that to all mages?”

 _Any mages under the Qun_ , he wants to say, but he opens his mouth to say instead, “I wouldn’t know. I’m Tal-Vashoth now, and that was never my job anyway.”

The lie comes easier than it has before.

Dalish rescues him by pushing the second tankard into Giulia’s hands, and the conversation passes on to the merits of ale (“poor, when compared to wine”) and the enchanter’s opinion of this tavern (“quaint”). Bull laughs along with Dalish, teasing her into trying the drink and taking it off her hands when the experiment goes poorly. After unsuccessfully trying to flag down a serving girl, Giulia gives up and goes to the bar, returning with a bottle of wine and three mostly-clean glasses.

It’s as she’s on her way back that Bull first spots the elf.

He’s on the other side of the room, over near the door, chatting up one of the guards the innkeeper has employed to watch the taproom. Bull couldn’t say what it is about him that first catches his eye: he’s pretty, with golden brown skin and fine blond hair, the lines of a sinuous tattoo tracing down his cheek, but that’s not an uncommon look in this part of Antiva, and there’s nothing distinctive or attention-grabbing about his clothing.

Then the elf shifts—just a faint twitch of his posture, but Bull has been trained in observation, and he’s seen that kind of stance before.

Seen the kind of knife the elf has concealed up his sleeve, too.

Giulia hands him a glass of wine then, and Bull’s attention is drawn by watching her lean in far closer than she has to to press a second on Dalish. Dalish grins at her and knocks it back, and Bull almost laughs at the offended noise Giulia makes.

“Don’t do that! You’re supposed to sip it,” she says.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Dalish says, draining her glass.

“I despair of you,” Giulia says. “It’s a good thing you’re so pretty.”

Bull rumbles a laugh. “You sure you want to waste the good stuff on a couple of mercs?” He can tell it’s meant to be good, even though he didn’t have much experience with alcohol before coming south. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to like it more, but at least he knows he can identify quality.

Giulia waves a hand dismissively. “Someone has to impart some sense of culture on you.”

“Good luck with that,” Dalish mutters into her glass. She’s already poured herself a second one.

Giulia sighs dramatically and takes the glass away from her, setting it down out of her reach and sliding her arm around Dalish’s waist. “Mercenaries,” she says, long-suffering. “I don’t know how you do it, really I don’t. I could never handle such a life.”

“It’s not so bad,” Bull says.

“How so?”

“It’s a living.”

“When Fisher actually pays us,” Dalish interjects.

“We get to travel.”

“Into every bandit-infested mudhole in Thedas.”

“The company’s good.”

“ _Present_ company,” Dalish corrects. “I’ll drink to that.”

“With what?”

Dalish glances around, then neatly plucks Giulia’s glass from her hand, raising it in toast.

“Hey!” Giulia protests, laughing.

“To shit not being as fucked as it could be,” Dalish declares grandly.

“Hear, hear,” Bull says, and taps his glass against hers.

That elf, he notes, has disappeared from the taproom.

He sets his empty glass down. “I’m going to go take a piss,” he says, getting to his feet.

Giulia looks faintly scandalized at his wording, which sets Dalish off cackling. “Don’t get lost,” she yells happily.

Bull gives her an ironic salute and ambles off, shouldering his way easily through the press of the crowd. Grim’s card game is still ongoing; he now has a tidy column of silvers stacked in front of him, along with what looks like a note of credit and, inexplicably, a wedge of cheese. Rocky is nowhere to be seen, but if the drunken singing emanating from under the other end of the Bleeders’ table is any indication, he’s doing just fine.

The alleyway behind the tavern is a blessed shock after the noise and warmth of the tavern, though the atmosphere isn’t improved by the smell of old piss. Bull finds a private corner to do his business, casually flicking his eyes over the nearby rooftops as he does so. He saw Giulia come out of her room earlier, and with the layout of the tavern as it is her window should be right—there. It’s shuttered, since she’s out right now, but it’s common in Antiva to leave the upper shutters open at night to catch the cool breeze coming in off the sea, and—there—that shadow on the courtyard, that patch of black that’s just faintly deeper than it’s meant to be—

Giulia is practically in Dalish’s lap when he comes back in, and he has no trouble settling in the space she’s left open on the bench. “Is there any reason you can think of that someone might want to kill you?”

The look Giulia turns on him is wide-eyed and more than a little frightened. “I—I don’t know. Circle politics, maybe? Did someone say something?”

Bull shakes his head. “Just a hunch. But it may not be safe for you to stay in your room tonight.”

“But—where else am I meant to go? I’ve already spent my stipend on the room here! I can’t—”

“Easy,” Bull says, settling a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you swap with me? It won’t be as nice as yours, or as private, but it’ll be safer. And Dalish might be able to swap around with someone to get you a bunk to yourselves.”

Dalish has a calculating look on her face that says she’s already plotting exactly how best to bully her way into an empty room. “Who are you in with?”

“Been bunking with Rocky. You could dump him on anyone, he won’t notice.”

“Done.”

“But won’t that put you in danger?” Giulia says. Her eyes are very round.

“I can handle myself,” Bull says. “Happy to help.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Dalish adds with a wink. “We’ll take care of you.”

Giulia glances between them, then takes a deep breath. Despite herself—and in the face of their confidence—she’s starting to look a little excited. “All right,” she says. “If you say you can deal with it…”

“No problem,” Bull says. He fishes a key out of his pocket and hands it off to Dalish. “Get yourselves in there. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Dalish shifts Giulia off her lap and makes a beeline for the end of the table that’s still singing. Bull waits only long enough for the enchanter to hand him her key, then makes his way upstairs with a deliberately casual stroll. There’s a maid stationed there, close enough to Giulia’s build to serve, and after he confirms the room is empty he pays her five silvers to go in and pretend like she’s getting ready for bed. When she blows out the light, he cracks the door open and slips inside, letting her out and locking it behind her. He’s alone in the night in an unfamiliar room, awaiting the arrival of an assassin.

He lets his eyes adjust to the dark, then moves on silent feet to the wall next to the window. There’s enough space there for him to stand comfortably, and it’s across the room from the bed: the assassin won’t be looking for anyone there. It’ll probably be a while, but he doesn’t mind. He’s done long stakeouts before. He breathes deep and settles in to wait.

It’s a couple hours later when his patience is finally rewarded. True to form, the maid he paid to impersonate the enchanter had cracked the upper shutters to let in a breeze; now, one slides open slowly with only the faintest creak of hinges. Bull watches with a professional curiosity as the assassin tosses in a thin cord with an oversized fishing hook tied on the end, then slowly withdraws it. It takes a few tries, but on the third attempt it catches on the latch, lifting it with a click and allowing the shutters to swing open. Bull shifts his stance, readying himself.

The assassin reels in his line and stows it before climbing silently in the window, his knives already unsheathed. Light spills in from the courtyard, painting shapes on the floor—but, crucially, leaving the bed in darkness. Bull’s eyes have adjusted, but the assassin’s haven’t yet, and he’s not looking in the shadowy corner behind the shutters. It’s all too easy, as the elf steps towards the bed, to move into the space between him and the window and block his means of escape.

Too late, the assassin notices the shadow on the floor. He spins immediately, moving faster than Bull expected, and in less than a second he has a knife to Bull’s throat.

Or, where Bull’s throat would be if he was human, female, and about two feet shorter.

The assassin blinks. “You are not my target.”

“Nope,” Bull says pleasantly, and slams his fist into the elf’s gut.

The assassin grunts and stumbles back, and that’s enough for Bull to grab his wrist and bend it back, squeezing until he drops the knife. The elf strikes at him with the other blade, but for all that he’s well trained, he’s clearly not experienced with fighting someone so much larger and stronger than he is. It’s easy for Bull to twist him around and evade his knife, pinning one hand behind his back and the other against his side with an arm around his torso.

“Well,” the assassin says. “This certainly isn’t how I expected my night to go.”

Despite himself, Bull huffs a brief laugh, grabbing the assassin’s other hand and making him drop his second knife. He does, with surprising compliance.

“I don’t suppose you might be persuaded to let me go?” he says.

Bull grunts. “That depends.”

“On?”

“On what your goal is here.”

For a moment the assassin says nothing, then he laughs, incredulous. “You’re joking, yes?”

“I know you’re here to kill Enchanter Giulia. I want to know your game.”

“My game?” the assassin says. He sounds increasingly delighted with every word. “My friend, I am a professional assassin. There is no game. I get paid; I kill someone. Simple. Now, don’t mistake me—” he adds, and here Bull has the impression he’d be holding up a hand to stop an imaginary protest, were his arms free— “I am under no illusions about my ability to complete my contract now. You’ve put the enchanter in one of your charming little mercenary bunks, yes?” Bull grunts a confirmation, and the assassin nods. “No, I’m clearly going to have to write off the rest of the night entirely. The question remains only whether you’re going to let me go or whether we’re going to throw caution to the winds and have some real fun.”

It takes Bull a long moment to figure out what he’s implying, having to wrench his mind out of spies and stakeouts and ambushes—out of Seheron—and back into an Antiva City tavern. “Are you serious?” he says. “I could always just kill you.”

“Certainly, you could,” the assassin says, sounding no more concerned than if he was discussing the price of fish at the market. “But I note you have neither brought a weapon nor made any move to reach for mine, and nor have you attempted to crush my throat with your admittedly massive hands. And so I must conclude that you would prefer not to kill me, and might in fact agree to keep me around for some time in order to extract from me whatever information you think I might possess.”

Damn.

He lets the assassin go, bending down to scoop his knives up before the elf can reach for them and setting them out of the way on the windowsill. “Do you always proposition people when you get caught?”

The assassin turns, sweeping his eyes up and down Bull’s form. “Only the particularly handsome captors. And besides, there’s no fun in life without risk.” He sweeps a bow. “My name is Zevran Arainai—but you, my friend, may call me Zev.”

 _Arainai._ “So it’s the Crows who’re after Giulia.”

Zevran hikes a brow. “Well, you know your Crow houses. I’m impressed. What could be your reason for that, I wonder?” he says, with an impish quirk to his smile. “You’re certainly not Antivan.”

“No,” Bull says. “Tal-Vashoth. The Iron Bull, with Fisher’s Bleeders.”

Zevran slinks up to him and lays his palms flat on Bull’s chest. “And how did a Tal-Vashoth mercenary know exactly where a fully fledged Crow was going to be tonight?”

Bull grins, circling his hands around Zevran’s waist and drawing him in close. “What do you mean?” he says, playing up his accent. “I just pay attention, is all.”

Zevran is small, especially compared to Bull, but he’s not delicate: there’s a toned, wiry strength to him, and a litheness that suggests at an interesting level of flexibility. He laughs now, throwing back his head and letting Bull admire the line of his throat. “Oh, yes, I’m quite certain you are very observant,” he says, and nudges him back towards the bed.

Bull goes willingly, sitting down and pulling Zevran into the space between his knees. Like this, they’re almost of a height, and Zevran leans in to kiss him like it’s nothing, easy as breathing, easy as anything. His lips are soft—softer than Bull’s used to, still—but his mouth is hot and heavy, open and inviting, the hard points of his teeth pressing forward eagerly. He kisses like he’s ready to drown in it.

Bull knows better than to drop his guard around an assassin, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten information from someone like this—and besides, despite himself he likes Zevran, likes the recklessness that makes him so ready to kiss a stranger who might still kill him, and the endearing way he can’t seem to make himself shut up. And he’s been told to play the _bas_. If he’s going to act the Tal-Vashoth, he may as well commit.

He starts removing Zevran’s clothing—it’s not armour, not exactly, though it’s reinforced and stiffened with leather in places. Zevran is eager to help, tugging on hidden fastenings and lifting his arms to slip his shirt over his head, and around kisses they soon get him stripped bare.

Zevran starts on Bull’s pauldron and waist belt, and Bull leaves him to it, running his knuckles up and down Zevran’s bared skin. “So why are the Crows after Giulia?” he asks.

Zevran chuckles, dropping Bull’s belt on the floor beside him, followed by his pauldron. “The Crows are paid to perform a service, my friend. If you’re asking why we were hired—that, I don’t know. I am merely the instrument by which the Crows will complete our contract. A knife is hardly encouraged to ask questions.”

“But you must have researched your target,” Bull says, kicking off his boots and pulling Zevran down onto the bed with him. He lays him out on his back and pins his wrists above his head with one hand, runs his hand down his stomach to his cock, and wraps his fist around it to give him a lazy stroke. “You must have suspicions,” he says.

Zevran makes a throaty sound that’s halfway between a chuckle and a moan, arching up into Bull’s grip. “Oh, yes,” he says. It’s not entirely clear what he’s responding to. “It seems our dear innocent Enchanter Giulia has connections to a Circle in Tevinter. Ah—research connections, of course—oh, keep doing that—but then again, _research_ covers so many interesting possibilities, wouldn’t you say?”

“Huh,” Bull says. He thinks back to the questions Giulia had asked about the Qun, questions he had dodged around out of habit more than suspicion. “Wonder if I should have let you kill her after all.”

Zevran’s answering laugh is breathless and delighted. “It’s hardly my problem. I’m an assassin, not a spy. Don’t you have something better to be thinking about right now?”

He’s not wrong. Bull can deal with Giulia later—and he might have a better idea of how to do that than just stepping out of an assassin’s way. But in the meantime, the only assassin he’s concerned with isn’t making himself a danger to anything but Bull’s focus.

“Keep your hands above your head,” he says, releasing Zevran’s wrists and pushing his legs apart.

Zevran is gasping and shuddering by the time Bull makes it down to his dick, his chest and stomach covered in swiftly fading bite marks and his hips straining against Bull’s grip. He’s kept his hands where he was told, twisting them into the pillow, and Bull rewards him for that with a long, slow lick up his cock. Zevran bites back a moan, his cock twitching and dripping precome, and Bull smirks and swallows him down.

He arches up sharply at that, and for a moment Bull reflects that it was a good idea not to let him grab his horns—he knows what he’s doing, but it’s always harder to keep control when someone’s yanking his head down, and he doesn’t particularly feel like choking tonight. He sets to work, already mentally composing a report. He’s going to have a fun time tailoring this one for the Ben-Hassrath.

Zevran is needy, pushy, arching his back and lifting his hips nearly off the bed in an effort to get closer to Bull’s mouth. Bull moves with him, one hand pressed against his stomach, and Zevran swears fluently in Antivan. Bull steadfastly doesn’t react; there’s no reason for a Tal-Vashoth mercenary to understand a word he’s saying. Still, Antivan curses are very anatomically creative, and it’s hard not to laugh.

Bull swirls his tongue across the head of Zevran’s cock, sucking at his foreskin, and the assassin curses again.

“Oh—oh, yes, fuck,” he says, in Trade this time, “you have such a talented tongue, my sweet.”

With a grin, Bull pulls off of him, mouthing his way down his dick to work his tongue over his balls. “Want to see just how talented I am?”

“Oh—what are you thinking?”

Bull shifts his grip on Zevran’s thighs, tilting his hips up and spreading his legs further. “Try not to jerk around too much,” he says, and drops his head to tongue at Zevran’s entrance.

The sound that Zevran bites off at that is more of a whine than a moan, and his whole body shudders at this fresh onslaught. Bull keeps a firm grip on his hips, pushing his tongue inside him and getting his whole mouth into it. He loves doing this. Having his partners spread out before him, his face pressed against their groin, the scent of them filling all his senses as they twitch and moan against his mouth—yeah, there’s something really special about making them feel so good.

And Zevran is beautifully responsive. Not loud—probably had that trained out of him—but constant in his vocalizations, little cut-off moans and hissed gasps. And what he doesn’t have in volume he has in motion, his entire body arching and shuddering, his legs alternatively spread wide and tight with tension on either side of Bull’s head.

“Oh, oh yes, I’m going to—fuck—”

Grinding himself down on Bull’s tongue, Zevran comes, spending himself across his stomach and half of Bull’s face. Bull lets him go, sitting up, grinning as he wipes his cheek.

“Andraste wept,” Zevran says, when he stops panting. “You are magnificent. Get over here, I am not done with you yet.”

“Gimme a sec,” Bull says, getting to his feet. He almost stumbles, the strength of his arousal—ignored until now—hard to deny even through the loose pants he’s still wearing, but he crosses to the washbasin and wets the cloth there, rinsing out his mouth and wiping his face.

Zevran has propped himself on one elbow when he comes back to the bed, and is watching him with heat in his eyes. He drops his gaze to the bulge in Bull’s pants and licks his lips, seemingly unconsciously. “Please,” he says, “do us both a favour and remove those immediately.”

Bull is all too happy to comply.

Zevran’s hand is on his cock the second he lays himself down on the bed, and Bull has to swallow down a groan. With a knowing look, Zevran leans in to kiss him, and Bull jerks back.

“Are you sure you want to—”

“My dear Iron Bull, you just had your tongue in my ass,” Zevran says. “I believe I can handle kissing you.”

“Fair enough,” Bull says, and pulls him down on top of him.

They trade kisses back and forth as Zevran squeezes his cock until Bull can feel the elf swelling to fullness once more against his hip. He pulls back, pressing his lips into Zevran’s jaw; the assassin’s breath is hot and heavy in his throat, and Bull himself is in a similar state.

“So, what did you have in mind?” he says.

Zevran hums, tipping his head back against Bull’s lips. “I think I want your cock in my ass, my sweet.”

Bull feels a shudder of heat at that, and he agrees all too easily. “Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he says, before remembering— “Do you have any oil? I sure didn’t bring any.”

“Oh, fine, if you insist,” Zevran says. He tears himself reluctantly away from Bull, getting to his feet and hunting in the dark through the scattered pile of clothing. “I have some for my leathers somewhere…,” he says, digging through his belt pouch. “Ah hah. Here we are.”

He returns to the bed, raking his gaze appreciatively down Bull’s body. Bull grins, propping himself up on his elbows, showing off the breadth of his chest to best effect. “Where do you want me?” he says.

Zevran hums again. “I don’t suppose you might be persuaded to tie me up.”

Bull can’t stop himself from letting out a bark of laughter. “Seriously? For an assassin you’ve got terrible self-preservation instincts.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Zevran says, sounding aggrieved. “All right, we’ll save the rope for our second date. In that case I believe I shall ride you, instead.”

“You want to ride the Bull, huh.”

Now it’s Zevran’s turn to let out a bark of unexpected laughter. “Oh, that’s very good,” he says. “Hold onto that, you should use it again.”

He climbs over him, settling across his thighs and trailing his hand appreciatively across Bull’s stomach and hips, then wraps it around his cock again. The oil is in a little corked vial; Zevran pops it open with his teeth and upends it over his dick, spreading it evenly with a few slow strokes. Then he lifts himself up on his knees, preparing to settle himself on Bull’s cock.

“Wait,” Bull says, “let me get you ready first.” Zevran isn’t small, and he’s obviously experienced, but Bull is bigger than average even for a qunari. It would be way too easy for him to hurt someone.

But Zevran just laughs. “Please,” he says, sardonic, pressing his entrance against the tip of Bull’s cock. “Have you no confidence in me, my sweet?” And then he sinks down, ever so slowly, taking him inch by steady, agonizing inch. His arms are shaking, hands braced on Bull’s chest, the bottle of oil abandoned somewhere in the bedsheets, and he leans forward with a conspiratorial smile. “Besides, I like it when it hurts.”

Another flare of heat curls through Bull’s stomach, and he tightens his grip almost reflexively on Zevran’s hips. “So if I left you with bruises…?”

“Please,” Zevran says, voice breathy. “I suppose it’s as good an excuse as any for why I have failed to kill my target tonight.”

Bull huffs a laugh at that and digs his fingers hard into his hips. Zevran moans, arching his back, and lifts himself up to start rocking on his dick. He’s tight, beautifully so, and clearly knows what he’s doing, squeezing around Bull so skillfully as to have him gasping. Bull’s been to the tamassrans plenty in his life, has always needed sex to balance himself properly, and he’s had a decent amount of experience since coming south. He’s never had anyone quite like this.

And Zevran obviously knows it. As he settles into a rhythm he lifts his hands, no longer bracing himself, riding Bull’s cock with only the strength of his legs. His thighs are spread wide over Bull’s broad hips, his skin flushed all down his chest, his fine golden hair coming undone and sticking to his throat. His cock is slick with precome, resting full and heavy against Bull’s pelvis. He’s beautiful; he’s showing off; he knows exactly how he looks.

Bull groans, flexing his hands on Zevran’s hips, letting his fingers drag down his thighs. He thrusts up into him with increasing urgency, and Zevran gasps and bucks against him, making Bull see stars. “Fuck,” he moans. “Fuck, you’re incredible.”

“I know, my sweet,” Zevran says, smug and breathless, squeezing around him again. “Go on, don’t hold back—I want to feel it—I want to feel you come in my ass, go on—”

Bull groans again and lets himself go.

Zevran rides him hard until he’s spent, not letting up until his cock starts to soften. He pulls off with a bitten-back sound, hips stuttering as he clenches around the sudden emptiness, and Bull catches him and pulls him down against his chest. He wraps his hand around Zevran’s dick and strokes him firmly, and then Zevran is thrusting and thrusting until he comes all over Bull’s hand.

They lay there together for long minutes, a panting, sweaty, tangled mess, until Zevran carefully tries to extract himself from Bull’s grip and makes a moue of distaste at the sticky mess between them. “Ugh. This is the worst thing about sex,” he says.

Bull chuckles softly. “Hang on, I’ll get us cleaned up.” He hauls himself upright, swinging slightly shaky legs down off the bed and crossing to the washbasin, where he makes quick work of wiping himself down. He rinses the cloth and returns to the bed, gently wiping the come from Zevran’s cock and stomach and between his legs. Under his touch the assassin relaxes, closing his eyes and stretching out luxuriously on the bed.

He curls up against Bull’s side as soon as he lies back down, and despite himself Bull slides an arm around his shoulders and gently shifts him closer. “You sure this is a good idea?”

“The Crows can wait until morning,” Zevran mumbles sleepily. He’s out in minutes, leaving Bull wondering just how someone so unlike the assassins he has known could possibly have gotten into the business.

Still, he has the right idea at least in one sense: it’s late, three hours or more past the midnight bell by Bull’s estimation, and the Bleeders are moving out early in the morning. A short rest wouldn’t hurt—and from what he knows of the Crows, he has nothing to fear from their assassins unless he becomes the object of a contract himself. As strange as it seems, he can sleep safely next to Zevran.

 _Three hours_ , he tells himself, and closes his eyes. That’ll see him wake an hour or two before dawn. Plenty of time for his purposes.

He wakes up to the grey half-light of false dawn. Zevran is still asleep against his side, curled in the hollow between his shoulder and his hip, and Bull is careful easing his arm out from under him before he slips off the bed. He dresses silently, picking his things out of the scatter on the floor, and then combs the room from end to end to find everything that belongs to Giulia.

It isn’t much: she has a couple other sets of robes, standard Circle issue, and a small bag of personal toiletries; a scribe’s portable lap table with inks, blank parchment, and a few half-finished letters in the drawer; two books on theoretical magic he couldn’t decode if he tried; and a leather purse with what remains of her travel stipend. He goes through her papers one by one. They’re mostly addressed to other mages, members of her Circle or others, ordinary Circle politics, but one of the names is Tevinter, and that one is a personal letter. He squints at it, then picks up one of the magical texts, leafing through it.

Yes, it’s a code book. If he had time he could go through it properly, but there’s not much point—the letter is incomplete, only a few lines long, and the Bleeders are meant to be on the road in a couple hours. It’s enough to know that Zevran was right. She is a spy.

That done, he packs her things into the saddlebag at the bottom of the wardrobe and slings it over his shoulder. Then, moving as quietly as he knows how, he lifts the cord Zevran used to open the shutters last night and steps over to the bed.

He takes his time, keeping his touch delicate, slowing whenever the assassin shows any sign of stirring—but Zevran doesn’t wake, only burrowing deeper into the pillow. Bull ties his wrists and ankles, looping the cord between them so that he’ll have to hobble if he wants to get up.

Then, before he goes, he borrows a scrap of parchment and a pen out of Giulia’s desk, scribbling out, _You wanted to be tied up, so I figured I’d oblige you. I’ll remember your ass fondly._ He folds it up, tucks it into one of Zevran’s hands, and lets himself out of the room.

Bull gave his key to Dalish, but the locks here aren’t very good and he doesn’t have a hard time getting the door open. Dalish and Giulia are curled up on the bed together, blonde hair blending with black, and they rouse sleepily when he shakes Giulia’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he says softly, “it’s me. Wake up, you need to get going.”

“What time is it?” Giulia says muzzily.

“A bit before dawn. I know,” he adds at her groan, “but I was right, there was an assassin. You should probably leave as soon as you can.”

She comes awake properly at that, the sheet sliding from her naked chest as she sits up, and Bull takes a brief moment to admire her tits before he hands her bag over. “Here. This is everything I found in your room.”

“Thank you,” she says, pulling the bag open and digging through it for a clean robe. “You are all right? You had no trouble with the assassin?” She gives him a quick look over. “You don’t look hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Bull assures her. “He didn’t hurt me at all. I’ve dealt with him for now, but he’s not dead, so you’ll want to get somewhere safe. Or disappear.”

“Thank you for this, Bull. Truly,” she says. She pulls on her smallclothes and throws the robe on, her fingers flying down the catches. Dalish opens her eyes as Giulia stands, and the enchanter turns back to her with a smile, leaning down to kiss her goodbye. “I need to settle up with the innkeeper. Goodbye, beautiful,” she says. “I am so glad to have met you both.”

“Hey,” Bull says, as she pulls the door open. “Send a note, if you get free. Messengers can usually find the Bleeders.”

“I will,” she says. The smile she shoots him before she leaves is utterly free of guile. Bull makes a mental note to tell the Ben-Hassrath she owes him a debt.

“What time did you say it was?” Dalish mumbles behind him.

“A bit before dawn.”

“Fuuuuuck,” she says, muffled into the pillow. “If I’m going to get woken up this early I should at least get morning sex.”

“Look on the bright side,” Bull says. “At least this way you’ll get breakfast before Rocky’s been at the kitchens.”

Dalish lifts her head at that, a slow smirk spreading across her lips. “Ooh, I bet he has such a hangover,” she says. “I can’t wait to drag him out of bed.”

“That’s the spirit,” Bull says. “Up and at ‘em, Dalish. We’ve got a job to do.”

* * *

The messenger finds them a week later.

“You the Iron Bull?” the kid says, sticking his head into the tent Bull is sharing with Rocky and Grim. He has the look of someone who knows it’s a stupid question, but it’s not worth his job to fail to check. Bull nods, getting up from the camp bed and ducking out of the tent.

“Got a note here for the Iron Bull, with Fisher’s Bleeders,” the messenger says. He hands over a folded sheet of parchment sealed with wax; there’s no insignia on the seal.

“Any idea who it’s from?” Bull says, flipping the kid a silver.

The messenger catches it deftly. “Didn’t say. Said not to bother waiting for a reply, though.”

Bull nods, waving him off, and tests the seal. It looks undisturbed, but that doesn’t really mean much, especially in Antiva. It’s a bit early for Giulia to have gotten safe, but he can’t think who else it might be. He cracks it open.

And starts laughing.

> _My dear Iron Bull,_
> 
> _I must congratulate you on a job well done. It took me nearly half an hour to get out of your ropes; what a sight I must have looked, stumbling about trying to untie myself. And of course by the time I had done so your enchanter was long gone. I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear I have not yet tracked her down._
> 
> _Watch your back, my sweet. If the Crows ever find out about your interference they may take offence, and I guarantee you that the next assassin you meet will have a far less magnificent ass than mine. Don’t get yourself killed. You still owe me that second date._
> 
> _Until we meet again,_
> 
> _Z_

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a [fantastic (NSFW) illustration from Arpad](http://primaryconsumer.tumblr.com/post/167936564602/i-was-browsing-the-black-emporium-a-rare-pair), holy fuck, I am so blessed.


End file.
